January 1, 2006 :: Inside Defense :: News
Congress has directed the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and U.S. Northern Command to each examine and report upon how to defend against the threat of a ship-launched missile: short-range missiles fired from cargo ships off the U.S. coast. As quoted in the December 22, 2005 edition of Inside the Pentagon, the conference report on the FY 2006 defense appropriations bill recommends “$10 million to conduct a comprehensive analysis on the need for and deployment of an asymmetric missile defense capability, including both land- and sea-based solutions, against the full range of asymmetric missile threats.” In particular, the MDA director will be required to submit a report to Congress by June 1, 2006, with MDA’s recommendations for deployment options. The DIA’s report is due March 1, 2006.
Such salutary action by Congress requiring the MDA to directly consider the ship-launched threat and the architecture necessary to combat it could represent an initial first step toward transforming a Clinton-administration missile defense architecture into a much more robust and layered defense. A report, however, is only the first step. After all, the 1998 Rumsfeld report warned of such a threat, as did the 2001 report submitted by the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) commission.
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